Hopes and Fears

Celia had been fine before she left for a care-supported holiday. She’s 65 and paraplegic having jumped off a bridge, unsuccessfully, thirteen years ago. But this time she’d forgotten, or had stopped taking, her tablets which included the anti-depressant Seroxat. 

My partner was convinced that because of her behaviour, her rambling delusions, her fear, her living dreams and nightmares, that she was bordering psychotic and that all she needed were some anti-psychotic drugs. Like Olanzapine, which had proved such a magic pill just after her suicide attempt, and had brought her a swift mental recovery.

Olanzapine is also my drug of ‘choice’ and has held me together, along with lithium, since my first breakdown in 1997. But the drug has a risk of stroke in older people and Celia has warfarin to help her heart, thus adding to the quandary – how best to treat her? But cognitive dementia must surely be a slow process, yet this change had happened virtually overnight…

Ironically the trauma and her diagnosis happened in the middle of our Fringe performance in Brighton of Hugging Barbed Wire a reflection on personal experience of psychosis which, thankfully, had been very well received (visit: www.huggingbarbedwire.com)

The tragic news also came as I was finishing the first draft of a book called Making Connections Matter; a personal guide to inner worlds. And Celia now features. What would you like to see in a book with this title? It’s a compilation of about 20 people’s experiences of a whole range of mental health problems from relatively mild to severe. Email me at steve@makingconnectionsmatter.org

Last night we went to see Ruby Wax in ‘Losing It’ at the Menier Chocolate Factory. I can highly recommend it – a heartfelt romp through her personal experience of mania and depression lifted with the delightful music of pianist Judith Owen.

I will keep you posted on Celia’s progress. It’s heartbreaking to sit with her for hours and for her to drift in and out of reality although so wide awake.